“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(“You said you’d give us some information about Rooney when I asked for it.”

(Our cat, Rooney, died a week ago, as described at the beginning of the 638th session. This material is included because many correspondents have asked us about the roles pets can play in family groups and their belief systems. Seth’s data proved to be unexpectedly penetrating and intimate — so much so that what follows is edited to some degree. Enough remains, however, to show that such relationships can be complicated indeed.)

(Four years ago this winter it was damaged by fire. The family living in it was moved and the shell boarded up — with Rooney, as a kitten, trapped inside. A passer-by heard his cries days later and freed him. The house has since been torn down.)

Ruburt was somewhat afraid of the cat, considering him wild and caged originally, as his own mother had been in his interpretation. Ruburt therefore felt obligated to help Rooney, who did not really have any love for him — just as in his earlier years he [Jane] had felt obligated to help his mother.

The cat was a male. You and Ruburt originally called it Katherine, however, when it was still a kitten, and before you finally succeeded in coaxing it into your house. Rooney got into neighborhood scrapes, as Ruburt’s father did in bars in various parts of the country. The cat knew of the identification but was willing to trade this for several years of additional physical life, in which he also learned to relate to gentleness for the first time.

Rooney even learned to be on terms with another cat; Willy, your older cat, in his way served as mentor.

Ruburt’s mother was very much afraid of cats, particularly black ones. Now and then Rooney and Ruburt passed symptoms back and forth. The cat was not a passive receptor, however, and also learned from his encounters with your neighbor downstairs (who also has a cat). Many of Ruburt’s feelings about his mother are buried in Rooney’s grave. Rooney, though, is free of a distrust that he had carried with him this time, having to do with his background in that house across the way, and was grateful for those additional years you gave him.

With the death of Ruburt’s mother last year, Rooney’s purpose was fulfilled for Ruburt. Rooney even did a final service, for through his death Ruburt faced the nature of pain and creaturehood that his mother’s life had so frightened him of.

(12:08. Jane didn’t remember any of that material. Seth had referred to probabilities and hinted at reincarnation in connection with Rooney, I realized as I scanned the notes, but before I could ask about such relationships he returned with a page of information for Jane on a different subject. Then when she came out of trance again, Jane said, “He’s got stuff on Willy, too,” but she was tiring. The session ended at 12:21 a.m.)